Developer Merus is continuing to pursue its effort to develop a North Jacksonville business park on land it proposes to buy along Zoo Parkway. Eagle LNG Partners Jacksonville LLC owns the land that Merus RE LLC wants to buy.
Merus is a designer, developer and builder of industrial, medical office, mixed-use, multifamily and office projects. It is based in Cincinnati, with offices in Nashville, Pittsburgh and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Merus and Eagle LNG agreed Nov. 26, 2025, to a purchase and sale agreement for 67.56 acres along the south side of Zoo Parkway, also called Heckscher Drive. The site at 1632 Zoo Parkway is 2 miles east of the Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens and 6 miles west of JaxPort’s Blount Island Marine Terminal. It is between Busch Drive North and Eastport Road, east of North Main Street.
Peacock Consulting Group LLC of Jacksonville is the agent for the petition filed March 2 with the St. Johns River Water Management District for a formal determination of the extent of wetlands and other surface waters. The purchase and sale agreement, with details redacted, was included with the petition.
Jacksonville City Council is considering legislation to enable Eagle LNG to turn part of its undeveloped liquefied natural gas site in North Jacksonville into an industrial park. Ordinances 2026-0084 and 0083 were introduced Feb. 10, 2026, and are in the Land Use & Zoning Committee to rezone 42.58 acres from Industrial Water to Industrial Light and to change the small-scale land use designation from Water Dependent-Water Related to Light Industrial.
Lawyer Paul Harden filed the ordinances on behalf of Eagle LNG.
Harden said Jan. 19 that he represented Merus in applying to the city Planning Department to start rezoning Houston-based Eagle LNG’s property for light industrial use. Harden also said at the time that Merus had the land under contract.
Eagle LNG owns 227.23 acres among two tracts of land along Zoo Parkway. The acreage that is targeted for rezoning is part of a 194.18-acre site. Signs of the industrial move started in October.
City utility JEA issued a service availability letter to Merus in October detailing connection points for two industrial buildings totaling 698,880 square feet. The JEA request included a planning proposal dated Oct. 20 that identified the site as Zoo Parkway Industrial Park.
The master plan by Merus and its Merus Architects in Nashville, Tennessee, shows a three-phase project comprising a 421,120-square-foot Building 1 as Phase I and a 277,760-square-foot Building 2 as Phase II. A Phase III is shown without a building designation. The rest of site is labeled as detention and flood plain areas.
The request says the proposal is not a final site layout. “We have the potential to add additional loading bays should it be required by future tenants,” it says.
The CBRE real estate company has listed the site as a 227-acre property for sale, calling it industrial waterfront development. CBRE says it is zoned for industrial use, offers CSX rail access and deep water with a 40-foot depth on the St. Johns River.
Eagle LNG wanted to ship gas from the site to Puerto Rico and other Caribbean Islands, provide it for fuel for marine customers globally and use it for U.S. domestic energy consumption. However, the coronavirus pandemic, inflation, construction costs and supply-chain challenges appear to have sidetracked the proposed $542 million project.
Eagle LNG paid $26 million in May 2022 for 194.18 acres from the Bostwick family. It separately paid $12.2 million to CEFL Inc., affiliated with North Jacksonville land owners William Webb Jr. and Dan Webb, for an adjacent 33.05 acres.